Thai police reject U.S. offer of help with stalled bomb investigation

One week after a bombing in Bangkok left 20 dead and 120 wounded, the Royal Thai Police appear to be working in slow motion to solve what local authorities call the deadliest attack in the nation’s modern history. So far, the only lead has come from grainy security camera footage showing a yellow-shirted man, now the prime suspect, dropping a backpack at Erawan Shrine minutes before the explosion. Police released pencil-sketch portraits of the man, but basic questions about the suspect’s identity and whereabouts remain unanswered.

In the absence of solid evidence on a culprit or motive, officials are blaming each other for the investigative failure.

On Tuesday, the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority called a news conference to reject a police statement claiming technical problems caused the investigative delay.

“There was only one broken camera at Rajaprasong intersection and that would not distort the investigation,” said Major Vichai Sangprapai, advisor to the Bangkok governor. “Please do not use the impairment of one camera to generalize that all the security cameras in Bangkok are inefficient.”

One day prior, National Police Chief Gen. Somyot Poompanmoung said 20 cameras flanked the suspect’s getaway route, but only five worked: “Fifteen were broken, for whatever reason, they didn’t work. The footage jumps around from one camera to another, and for the missing parts police have had to use their imagination. We’ve had to waste time connecting the dots.”

Poompanmoung also complained about Bangkok’s unsophisticated security equipment, which lacks facial-recognition technology.

“Have you seen CSI? We don’t have those things,” he huffed.

Critics accuse the nation’s police of failing to secure forensic evidence and stalling the public with untrue or misleading information, adding to the confusion at a time of public concern. But police insist the case is complex. “To investigate a bombing anywhere in the world is difficult … in some cases they never found a suspect, even though 20 years passed. But we will keep trying,” national police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri said.

Meanwhile, rumors and speculation permeate the city. Theories of responsibility for the bomb attack range from anti-government radicals to Muslim extremists to a renegade military faction.

A recent New York Times article reported the Thai government is skeptical to link the incident with a terror network. “Frankly speaking, there’s no evidence yet showing [the attack] was international terrorism,” Thai police spokesman Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri told The Times.

According to a recent Reuters report, the “Fallaga Team,” a group claiming to be Tunisian Muslims, hacked a half-dozen of Thailand’s regional government websites last week, though they obtained no data. But government officials declared the cyber-crime had no connection to the bomb attack.

Last week, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok offered to assist the Thai government with its investigation, but Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha refused, insisting Thailand could handle the job alone.

“It won’t be necessary to cooperate on the investigation with U.S. officers,” Prayuth told reporters. “We need to help ourselves.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.